The Cowboys are heading toward the Nov. 10 trade deadline with two competing ideas in front of them: add help from outside, or trust that the answers are already on the roster.
Jerry Jones made it clear he still sees Dallas as a possible buyer.
“I’ll be real clear, I could see being active at the trade deadline if it was something that could help the team this year,” Jones said.
That stance matters because the Cowboys are not shopping from a position of comfort. They are 2-4, they have struggled to score in their last two games, and their most obvious problems have shown up on both sides of the ball. The defense is trying to find greater consistency under Christian Parker, while the offense keeps circling back to the same question: can Dallas run the ball well enough to make everything else work?
Brian Schottenheimer has been pushing that point from the sideline.
“For a play caller’s purpose, you want to run the ball. You want to be balanced. We have the ability to run very, very well,” Schottenheimer said.
That is the tension around Dallas right now. Jones is talking about being active at the deadline, but the Cowboys’ own coverage keeps pointing back to internal correction. The run defense is allowing 149.8 yards per game, the offense has only one 100-yard rushing game this season, and the team has already been burned by games in which the execution never caught up to the plan.
The latest example came in the 23-13 loss to the Packers, when Dallas failed to score in the first half. The Buccaneers game was no cleaner: a 24-16 home loss shaped by turnovers and defensive issues. Those are the kinds of games that make deadline talk feel less like a luxury and more like a referendum on what the roster can fix by itself.
There is also some reason for Dallas to believe the defense can improve without a major outside addition. The Cowboys generated their best pressure percentage of the season against Jordan Love, finishing with 20 pressures on 45.5% of passing opportunities. But pressure only matters if it turns into sacks and stops, and that has been the missing step.
Personnel changes are already part of the picture. DeMarvion Overshown is expected to return against Green Bay after missing five games with a hamstring injury, and the Cowboys have already added Joey Porter Jr. from the Pittsburgh Steelers to strengthen the secondary. Even with those moves, the broader issue remains the same: Dallas still has to clean up the details that have been holding it back.
On offense, the message has been even more direct. Ryan Flournoy said the Cowboys need to feed their running back more.
“We’ve got a dominant running back. [Javonte] is a great running back, and I think we need to feed him more,” Flournoy said.
That lines up with the larger frustration around the offense. Dallas was promised balance ahead of the 2026 season, but the current version has not looked balanced enough to support that idea. The Cowboys have had only one 100-yard rushing game, and the lack of production has left them trying to solve the same problem in different ways.
Flournoy also said the team is trying to keep the focus narrow.
“Estamos enfocados en un partido a la vez. La temporada es larga. Apenas estamos en la Semana 6 y todavía nos quedan 11 partidos,” he said.
That is the other side of the deadline conversation. Dallas can still look at the market, especially with the NFC East in a strange place — the division went a combined 0-6-2 over the last two weeks, the first time any NFL division has gone winless in consecutive weeks while playing four or more games. But the Cowboys’ own issues are specific enough that a trade alone would not erase them.
They need cleaner offense in Week 7. They need the run game to matter more. They need the defense to turn pressure into actual stops. And they need to decide whether the deadline is a chance to add one more piece, or a reminder that the most urgent fixes may already be on the roster.